Deputy Mayor Olgen Williams To Run For Mayor

Now there are three candidates who plan to seek the Republican nomination for mayor. Radio talk show host Amos Brown says he has confirmed Deputy Mayor Olgen Williams will run for the Republican nomination without the blessings of his boss, Mayor Greg Ballard. The Marion Co. GOP claims to have a self-financed candidate it plans to anoint in an announcement later this week as its candidate. Williams, a convicted felon pardoned by former President George W. Bush, joins Jocelyn-Tandy Adande and Terry Michael, both of whom have already filed to run in the Republican primary for mayor.

In a surprise move Deputy Mayor Olgen Williams IS running for GOP nomination for Indy Mayor. But he's NOT candidate the party announcing Wed
— Amos Brown (@Amoswtlcindy) January 19, 2015

UPDATE: There are news reports that Rev. Charles Harrison is backing away from running for mayor with the entry of Williams into the race; however, there is nothing preventing Harrison from entering the race following the primary as an independent candidate. It has been rumored that Harrison might run as a Libertarian. If the Republicans have another candidate they intend to slate at their slating convention later this month, that candidate would be the odds-on-favorite to win the primary election, particularly against a candidate like Williams who supported incumbent Democratic Mayor Bart Peterson's re-election in 2007 before his appointment as a deputy mayor in the Ballard administration, and whose ties to the Republican Party are pretty thin and short-lived.